Martin Luther King's letter was and still extremely powerful and moving. It is clear here the degree of his intellegence and ability as an writer (and inextricably as an orrator).
I believe that these men who wrote to him saying his cause was "unwise and untimely" were writing this in hopes that no one would ever know of their letter, and that the movement would quiet down.
Martin Luther King completely blows this idea out of the water. He does this however with a respectful tone of disagreement. This letter when read by the public becomes a guide for those in the civil rights movement who may feel that there work is not "going the way they want" or just not moving quick enough for whatever reason.
I think a number of his sections are so moving, so eloquently writing and so undeniably intelligent that the men whom he was responding to, must have been some what awestruck.
One of these sections is about how to define a law as "just or unjust". Here as in so many places not just in this letter, MLK makes the fight not about black or white, not about male or female, not about rich or poor. It is about something more than that, something that is basic to our human existence. MLK quotes Thomas Aquinas and other legal philosophies, but I find this simple statement to be undeniable, "Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust."
It is comments like this that make MLK so effective. He succeeds in what I believe was his purpose of letting these men know that some "note" will not stop this movement because we all have waited much too long. Also to let his followers know that now is not "unwise or untimely" because for the oppressed there is no such thing as wise or timely when confronting ones oppressor. Instead the movement must push harder and become stronger and continue to succeed.
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